Clarkstown Town Supervisor George Hoehmann filed a restraining order after at least 31 people, including children, were found in a three-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot home at 295 New Hempstead Road in New City. The Republican said code enforcers received an anonymous tip about the house and spoke with a few migrants at a nearby donation bin. Once they got access to the home, officials discovered what Hoehmann described as a “flophouse,” with several mattresses, overloaded electrical outlets and children sleeping in the garage.
Hoehmann went through a slideshow of pictures from the scene at a press conference Monday.
"This would have been an absolute disaster, had there been a fire at this house," Hoehmann explained. "People would have died here, and first responders would have been injured or killed."
Hoehmann said law enforcement had only just made contact with the owner of the home, Sholamei Koppel of Monsey, on Monday. While the investigation is ongoing, he described many of the home’s occupants as undocumented, from Ecuador. He said some of the people interviewed by police had crossed the southern border into the U.S. as early as two weeks ago, and came to Rockland County by way of New York City.
The situation drew a fiery response from first-term Congressman Mike Lawler of the 17th District and Rockland County Executive Ed Day, fellow Republicans who joined Hoehmann for the press conference. Both men appeared to speculate, without evidence, that the house could be tied to efforts by New York City Mayor Eric Adams to bus asylum seekers to hotels upstate.
Day called on state Attorney General Letitia James to investigate the movement of migrants across the state.
"I believe it's human trafficking, I believe there's money involved, I believe it's illegal," said Day. "And while she's at it, she should take a look at — if it ends up that Mayor Adams is involved in this, in my simple mind, there are a number of court orders that he's held to. If he's violated those court orders, he should be held accountable."
Spokespersons for Adams and James did not respond to requests for comment in time for broadcast. Hoehmann said law enforcement is still investigating exactly how the home’s occupants arrived in New City.
The press conference did encapsulate the frustration felt by some upstate officials over not just New York’s migrant crisis, but the broader immigration crisis as well. Day was one of multiple county executives to declare a state of emergency when Adams announced plans to relocate migrants earlier this year, in an attempt to alleviate a strain on city resources.
Rockland County currently has an emergency order banning outside municipalities from establishing shelters or temporary housing in its communities without permission from the county. According to the order, any hotel operator or person who violates the order can be fined $2,000 per violation, per day.
Despite that, Day said Monday the county is still struggling.
"I don't know what more I can say at this point," he said. "We have a 35 percent increase in foster care. Our nonprofits are assisting three times the families that they did a year ago. Rockland County is still funding our pantries, because we try to be humane. Being humane does not mean shipping people from one borough to one county or one state to another. That's what is being done now, and it's not being done by us."
Day said he wouldn’t be surprised to discover more shelter operations at homes across Rockland County. Lawler pointed the finger at Governor Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and ultimately the Biden Administration for not doing more to stem the flow of people across the southern border and into New York state. He specifically called on Schumer, a New York Democrat, to take up H.R. 2, a bill passed by House Republicans earlier this year that would resume construction of a southern border wall and tighten restrictions on those seeking asylum in the U.S.
“We've sounded the alarm on this issue. We were called all sorts of names by my Democratic colleagues. They called us 'racist,' they called us 'bigoted,'" said Lawler. "We were raising the alarm because this is unsustainable, and people are going to get hurt as a result."
Governor Hochul has called on President Biden to help by providing federal assistance and expediting work authorizations for asylum seekers in New York. The Democrats met for what Hochul called a “very productive conversation” on Tuesday.
